Dating : 66. THE DEVOTION LEAP

“The Devotion Leap” is the title of a New York Times column by David Brooks. In the column, Brooks explores the data generated by the online dating site “OkCupid,” which features multiple-choice questions to match members.

The following are excerpts from Brooks’ column:

“Looks, unsurprisingly, dominate online dating. But I learned some details from Dataclysm, the book by Christian Rudder, who is the co-founder and president of OkCupid.

“There’s a gigantic superstar effect. Women who are rated in the top 5 percent of attractiveness get a vast majority of the approaches. The bottom 95 percent get much less. For men, looks barely matter at all unless you are in the top 3 percent or so. The hunks get barraged with approaches.

“It’s better to have a polarizing profile than a bland one. People who generate high levels of disapproval — because they look like goths or bikers or just weird — often also generate higher levels of enthusiasm.”

“People who date online are not shallower or vainer than those who don’t. Research suggests they are broadly representative. It’s just that they’re in a specific mental state. They’re shopping for human beings, commodifying people. They have access to very little information that can help them judge if they will fall in love with this person. They pay ridiculous amounts of attention to things like looks, which have little bearing on whether a relationship will work. OkCupid took down the pictures one day. The people who interacted on this day exchanged contact info at twice the rate as on a regular day.

“The dating sites have taken the information available online and tried to use it to match up specific individuals. They’ve failed. An exhaustive review of the literature by Eli J. Finkel of Northwestern and others concluded, ‘No compelling evidence supports matching sites’ claims that mathematical algorithms work.’ That’s because what creates a relationship can’t be expressed in data or photographs. Being in love can’t be done by a person in a self-oriented mind-set, asking: Does this choice serve me? Online dating is fascinating because it is more or less the opposite of its object: love.

“When online daters actually meet, an entirely different mind-set has to kick in. If they’re going to be open to a real relationship, they have to stop asking where this person rates in comparison to others and start asking, can we lower the boundaries between self and self. They have to stop thinking in individual terms and start feeling in rapport terms.

“Basically, they have to take the enchantment leap. This is when something dry and utilitarian erupts into something passionate, inescapable and devotional.”

“In love, of course, the shift starts with vulnerability, not calculation. The people involved move from selfishness to service, from prudent thinking to poetic thinking, from a state of selection to a state of need, from relying on conscious thinking to relying on their own brilliant emotions.”

Brooks notes, “We live in a culture and an online world that encourages a mind-set in which humanism, religion and the humanities, which are the great instructors of enchantment, are not automatically central to life.”

Q: What do you think is the most effective way to take the enchantment leap?